WARNING: RANT!! why can't computers ever just be reliable

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

Just now, TetraSky said:

Half of the time, I find that PC issues are RAM related. Then maybe 20% is Windows/drivers related. 10% is storage related. 10% power supply. 5% motherboard. 5% everything else.

So if you have an issue, the troubleshooting steps that I do is the following

 

0- Get rid of ALL overclock. Only set the RAM to XMP.
1- Test the RAM & CPU with Prime95 on Blend for a quick and dirty way of finding RAM issues (unless there's evidence that the issue might be something else, like PC shutting down completely which indicate a power issue)
2- Follow that up with Memtest overnight for 12 to 24 hours. If all is clean, set to XMP and re-run the test.

3- If the issue was graphical, test the GPU.

4- Bluescreen? Have the minidump analyzed. No Bluescreen? Enable them because MS disabled them to stop scaring people, but because it's disabled, it doesn't generate a minidump, so you need to enable it for proper analysis.
5- Rollback drivers and/or reinstall windows (after doing a backup of all my data)

6- Install windows on a different drive and test the storage medium with whichever tool provided by the manufacturer
..................
etc.

i would do that, if i had 100x the spare time i have. 

[kelvinhall05]

1 minute ago, Ashley said:

i would do that, if i had 100x the spare time i have. 

Don't build your own computer if you aren't gonna take the time to solve the problems with it, lol.

[TetraSky]

Just now, Ashley said:

i would do that, if i had 100x the spare time i have. 

All of those are literally just a "Set it up and forget it for x hours". Takes 5 minutes. If you pretend to not have 5 minutes to find out what your PC's issue is, that's on you. (Even though you clearly have the time to come here and post)

[Kilrah]

6 minutes ago, Ashley said:

correct. but they were in a known good state. because they worked fine. 

Could have had ESD damage, been overvolted to hell and prematurely worn, not cooled adequately... leading to short life. Never know with used components. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

2 minutes ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Don't build your own computer if you aren't gonna take the time to solve the problems with it, lol.

lol that's good advice. don't use technology if you don't have time or spares inc ase it stops working

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

Could have had ESD damage, been overvolted to hell and prematurely worn, not cooled adequately... Never know with used components. 

doubt that. the person i got the board from is a friend of mine and i know what he does with his computers. he does not overclock them. ESD is possible, but i doubt it would work for 9 months before showing issues...

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, Ashley said:

lol that's good advice. don't use technology if you don't have time or spares inc ase it stops working

That's not what I said. I said to not BUILD your own PC if you don't have time to solve any potential problems. If you don't want to deal with normal hiccups, just get a prebuilt or a Mac or something.

[Vishera]

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

i was getting some graphical glitching

You might have a defective component.

1 hour ago, Ashley said:

i got that board form a friend for €20 and the cpu was used as well and didn't cost much more. it was about price here. 

Maybe that's your problem...

It's possible that the GPU is defective.

[SolarNova]

26 minutes ago, Ashley said:

what have i done wrong here?

 

13 minutes ago, Ashley said:

i would do that, if i had 100x the spare time i have

You dont have the time to do the basic maintenance. So its likely a problem arising from that.

 

You mention graphical issues. Have u checked to see if its the monitor at fault ?

You mention 'sleep state' being problematic, have u consider i dunno ..not using sleep mode. its notorious for being picky with software, there's no need to use it u have SSDs, its a modern system booting should take less than a minute. Just shut the frigging thing down when not in use.

 

Other issues or issues not resolved then...

Do a clean install of the OS and base drivers. Is the problem gone ?

 

yes = software issue, problem now solved

no = hardware issues, diagnose

 

Diagnose = Simple things 1st.

Bios : Factory defaults

not fixed ?

Open up the case reconnect everything.

not fixed ?

If u have a GPU remove it and run of the internal Intel GPU.

Remove a ram stick see if its the RAM

Still not fixed, now u need spare hardware. You got a friend with anything spare for diagnostic purposes ?

 

Honestly with the fact u said u always had problem with other builds and u have no time for diagnostics or maintenance, i suspect like i said in my original post, this is the result of the user. PCs rarely spontaneously f*ck up.

 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

7 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

You dont have the time to do the basic maintenance. So its likely a problem arising from that.

excuse me? i reinstalled my operating systems and i reseated my ram and all power connectors and gpu.

 

7 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

You mention graphical issues. Have u checked to see if its the monitor at fault ?

monitor is known good. 

 

8 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

You mention 'sleep state' being problematic, have u consider i dunno ..not using sleep mode. its notorious for being picky with software, there's no need to use it u have SSDs, its a modern system booting should take less than a minute. Just shut the frigging thing down when not in use.

yes, modern systems boot quickly. but i still have to manually relaunch all my apps, get my browsertabs back in order, etc. 

 

9 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Do a clean install of the OS and base drivers. Is the problem gone ?

did that, nope. 

 

9 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Bios : Factory defaults

i will try that but i doubt it's the issue since issues are random and appeared without modifying bios at all. 

 

10 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Open up the case reconnect everything.

i ddn't reconnect everything but i reseated all the important stuff. 

 

10 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Still not fixed, now u need spare hardware. You got a friend with anything spare for diagnostic purposes ?

i don't, and i have even less spare time to just try parts randomly. i have important emails to send, i have stuff to do. i need it to work. 

[Kilrah]

12 minutes ago, Ashley said:

yes, modern systems boot quickly. but i still have to manually relaunch all my apps, get my browsertabs back in order, etc. 

Autorun and browser's "remember session" are a thing. I don't have to manually launch or restore anything I want launched when I boot.

 

12 minutes ago, Ashley said:

i don't, and i have even less spare time to just try parts randomly. i have important emails to send, i have stuff to do. i need it to work. 

Well ditch it and go back to your mac then. 

TBH this whole thread sounds like asking people to tell you that/what you want to hear.

 

Except you recently said you hated macs too, so... unstable and impatient much? Maybe go back to pen and paper.

[Windows7ge]

All I can say is it comes with the territory. When you buy a Mac or a pre-build system/server all the hardware is validated by the company to be compatible and QoS tests are usually performed before it leaves the factory so unless there's very rough handling during shipping the system will usually perform well most of the time.

 

When you build a PC custom you accept the risk that your hardware may not be the most stable or compatible. Each vendor can only validate the QoS of each component but once it's assembled you're on your own if it doesn't work correctly. Especially if you picked 2nd hand equipment.

 

On a global scale Mac's have issues all the time, Pre-built PC's have issues all the time, Servers from the likes of Dell, HPE, Lenovo, etc have problems all the time, and custom PC's have issues all of the time.

 

Your situation is not a reflection that PC's as a whole are unreliable you've just been unfortunate enough to not have stable hardware, It happens. The only difference here is you don't have a company to approach to fix those problems for you. You have to debug the problem on your own which is half the fun of owning a custom PC. It's a learning experience you're robbed of with Macs & pre-builds.

[spendog8]

I had a similar issue to yourself, turned out my motherboard did not like 3600mhz ram(while rated for it). Once I underclocked it to 3400 Ive not had any issues.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Ashley said:

i'm seriously getting frustrated now. if i build a computer no matter what i get issues. my current pc (i3 8100, Z370-P, 16GB Ram and a few ssd's), is having super weird problems and i'm just sick of this custom pc space at this point. 

 

 

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Sometimes you just pick bad parts and it all comes home to roost.

 

My P35-platform, I replaced every part in the system trying to resolve a problem, eventually the problem wound up being the PSU, after replacing the GPU, CPU, RAM, and MB. The CPU also wouldn't work with the RAM on the P45 board, and the CPU eventually just wouldn't work with anything so I replaced the quad core with a dual core. Then one day the P45 board kept triggering the BIOS recovery flash (which is why Gigabyte is no longer on my buy list) eventually killing itself, so I went back to the P35 board. This required going back to the original RAM I had on the P35 board.

 

With my Z87 platform however, I haven't had to replace anything, it's still using the PSU and hard drives from the P35 system, with one drive having 65,000 hours on it. I've been unwilling to upgrade it as long as it works because I don't want a repeat of the P35.

 

With the Pentium II, I had a similar problem where any game or program that used the MMX instructions would lock up the CPU after several minutes, every time, eventually (read, long past the point the PII was available) I managed to acquire a PIII for the same machine and got some more life out of it. 

 

The P4 laptop that I had between the PIII and the P35-C2D, had it's own issue, I upgraded the RAM, and it wouldn't work with the first set of RAM, so I had to send it back to the manufacturer and get slower memory.

 

Like as far as weird problems go, OEM's are actually somewhat worse. You can get an OEM like a HP or Dell, and everything will be good, or you will get an entire series of them that suck and you have to cart the thing back and forth or have multiple techs look at it and not fix it. I would never recommend an OEM high-end system as they always have a few corners cut, particularly with cooling and power.  RAM has to be exactly the configuration in the manual, even if the chipset supports more or faster memory, as you won't be able to tweak it very much or at all.

 

Ultimately you should just buy an OEM system if you don't have the time and patience to deal with third party whitebox/retail parts.  20 years ago I would say never buy Compaq, HP or Dell because the proprietary level, often made no parts interchangeable, not even on the same PC brand. Now that largely is just Apple. There are exceptions to that, Dell tends to make the most proprietary PC parts, with MB and PSU's entirely incompatible with non-Dell parts, and BIOS's that often betray features that their Enterprise/workstation/servers have. So you might get an unlocked K series Intel CPU, but the BIOS will have absolutely nothing tweakable in regards to the CPU or RAM. HP also has some proprietary BIOS stuff, but they tend to have MB's that are more similar to standard third party boards.

[dilpickle]

I've been there. At one point I had 3 motherboards in a row fail on me over a couple of years and take out my main system. I was about one click away from buying a pre-built and that is always a legitimate option if you just want things to work. What stopped me is when I realized the pre-built high end gaming PCs are using the exact same off the shelf parts we do so they won't be any more reliable.

 

There is a fine line when troubleshooting a self-built system stops being fun and starts being frustrating. That line will be different for everybody.

[Trik'Stari]

4 hours ago, wall03 said:

Basically: buy Apple.

 

Huh. Kinda what I thought in March before I decided I would build my own computer.

 

But it seems like a bottleneck on your end kinda. 16GB of RAM and a i3 8100 and a Z series mobo? Maybe that was what it was like before I entered the PC world at around the time AMD's stock price be Ryzen (pun totally intended) if you wanted futureproofing.

 

Huh

He said "reliable" not "overpriced garbage that breaks if you look at it wrong".

 

This was in jest.

[Donut417]

4 hours ago, Ashley said:

why msut it be like this? i'm not even talking these issues specifically now, also Windows just deciding to break my gpu driver and i have to spend an hour to get it back to normal is just... why? why do we as customers accept this? 

For the record this is just the part of owning PC's. Some times parts just don't like each other, it happens. Some times (All the time) Microsoft breaks stuff with Windows 10 updates (People tolerate it because it still has the highest marketshare). Software issues are not just Microsofts issues, drivers can be to blame, any software dev can make a mistake. To be honest even Prebuilt PC's have issues, because drivers are mainly provided by the manufacture who generally does a poor job, and sometimes Windows just don't like those drivers. Had my mom's Lenovo desktop get taken out by a Windows update, probably due to the GPU drivers provided by Lenovo. Had to reset Windows to fix. With Linux, you have a whole other set of things to keep in mind. Not all hardware works, not all drivers are good. You have to find work arounds. 

 

As far as Apple goes (Writing this on a 2020 MacBook Pro) even they have bugs. For example up till the newest OS update any Type C hubs would loose USB connectivity. Other ports on the hub would still work, Like video for instance, but USB devices would stop communicating with the machine. Finally Apple released an update for it. 

 

The take away from this is you have to pick your poison. I myself haven't been screwed over by Apple yet, so I use my MacBook Pro as my main machine. I have a Windows 10 gaming rig, that's for gaming and Porn. Then I have my Plex server that runs on Ubuntu. In my case I picked them all, but each for a specific task. 

 

4 hours ago, Ashley said:

buy a console when it inevitebly dies.

I mean that might be the way to go. I myself like building PC's which is why I have two custom built systems. I don't game as much as I should considering what I paid for my gaming machine. But Consoles are easy, and plug n play. So if your looking for an easy way to game with little to no issues than you might consider a console. Ive considered one myself at one time. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

20 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

I've been there. At one point I had 3 motherboards in a row fail on me over a couple of years and take out my main system. I was about one click away from buying a pre-built and that is always a legitimate option if you just want things to work. What stopped me is when I realized the pre-built high end gaming PCs are using the exact same off the shelf parts we do so they won't be any more reliable.

yeah pre built gaming pc's are dumb like that, because they suffer from the same problem. parts from different vendors that aren't perfectly tuned to work with eachother. 

 

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

As far as Apple goes (Writing this on a 2020 MacBook Pro) even they have bugs. For example up till the newest OS update any Type C hubs would loose USB connectivity. Other ports on the hub would still work, Like video for instance, but USB devices would stop communicating with the machine. Finally Apple released an update for it. 

interesting. i didn't have that on a 2017 MBP i had for a while (i was forced to sell it sadly, it was treatet horribly by the previous owner. it was basically never unplugged from the charger for 3 years which made the battery fail) and i didn't have that problem... 

 

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I have a Windows 10 gaming rig, that's for gaming and Porn.

gaming i get that you use Windows for that but whi watch adult content on it? you do know it sends all of that data back to microsoft?

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I mean that might be the way to go. I myself like building PC's which is why I have two custom built systems. I don't game as much as I should considering what I paid for my gaming machine. But Consoles are easy, and plug n play. So if your looking for an easy way to game with little to no issues than you might consider a console. Ive considered one myself at one time. 

i really enjoy consoles. i grew up on them and i went into pc's because to be honest the PS4 kinda sucked. also i enjoyed building them and troubleshooting them at the time because they were just for gaming.. the PS5 looks veeeeery promising though, so i'm really tempted. 

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, Ashley said:

you do know it sends all of that data back to microsoft?

Im sure they are getting some interesting data. LOL. Kinky. 

 

4 minutes ago, Ashley said:

the PS5 looks veeeeery promising though, so i'm really tempted. 

Id be more temped for an Xbox. Don't really care for the look of the PS5. Also, I didn't really enjoy the PS3. 

[Delicieuxz]

5 hours ago, Ashley said:

i'm seriously getting frustrated now. if i build a computer no matter what i get issues. my current pc (i3 8100, Z370-P, 16GB Ram and a few ssd's), is having super weird problems and i'm just sick of this custom pc space at this point. 

 

basically, i was getting some graphical glitching which went away and recenty came back, and it won't stay in sleep reliably. if i do that it'll turn on in the middle of the night. now, that doesn't sound like a big deal. i'm not expecting a dead gpu, since i can play the witcher 3 for hours with no crashing, lines on the screen or weird color glitching. however, it's recently developed a new fault. if i turn it on, there is a chance it'll beep at me that i don't have displays connected, even when i do have displays connected and it won't boot. i then need to unplug and plug displays back in until it decides it wants to work. also, the main screen does not turn on if i boot the machine. i have to turn it off from standby and turn it back on before it decides it's connected. 

Are you overclocking your GPU? The graphical issues sound to me like they could be caused by a messy driver installation or overclocked memory.

 

I would use Display Driver Uninstaller to do a complete uninstallation of all traces of your current display driver, and then reinstall the latest driver fresh. And then if your GPU isn't overclocked and the colour glitching is still present, I'd try underglocking the GPUs memory and see if that stops the issue from occurring.

 

 

Regarding the issue with the PC waking-up from sleep on its own, I've had the same issue with Windows 10. But I've also found a solution for it, which was to disable wake on network packet.

 

There are a few things you can try, that might solve the issue, here: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-stop-your-computer-from-randomly-waking-up-from-sleep-mode

 

It looks like the solution under the section titled "Limit Your Network Adapter" resembles what worked for me.

 

 

Another issue I've had with Windows 10 is that every time I clean install it, I can put my PC into sleep-mode and wake it up, and my PC including mouse will operate normally... but as soon as I install a feature update (and I've experienced this issue with every feature version of Windows 10 I've had), after I wake my PC up from being in sleep, the mouse no longer works (the lights on it are off, no movement or button response) and I have to restart my system in order to get my mouse working in the OS again.

 

Overall, I think that Windows is just a sloppily-made OS, though.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

17 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Id be more temped for an Xbox. Don't really care for the look of the PS5. Also, I didn't really enjoy the PS3. 

i loved the PS3, in fact i still do. i still play games on mine. i don't want an xbox because i don't want more microsoft in my life quite frankly...

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

16 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Are you overclocking your GPU? The graphical issues sound to me like they could be caused by a messy driver installation or overclocked memory.

 

I would use Display Driver Uninstaller to do a complete uninstallation of all traces of your current display driver, and then reinstall the latest driver fresh.

i'm not OCing and i reinstalled the OS's so the drivers were refreshed. 

[Lord Vile]

5 hours ago, Ashley said:

i'm seriously getting frustrated now. if i build a computer no matter what i get issues. my current pc (i3 8100, Z370-P, 16GB Ram and a few ssd's), is having super weird problems and i'm just sick of this custom pc space at this point. 

 

basically, i was getting some graphical glitching which went away and recenty came back, and it won't stay in sleep reliably. if i do that it'll turn on in the middle of the night. now, that doesn't sound like a big deal. i'm not expecting a dead gpu, since i can play the witcher 3 for hours with no crashing, lines on the screen or weird color glitching. however, it's recently developed a new fault. if i turn it on, there is a chance it'll beep at me that i don't have displays connected, even when i do have displays connected and it won't boot. i then need to unplug and plug displays back in until it decides it wants to work. also, the main screen does not turn on if i boot the machine. i have to turn it off from standby and turn it back on before it decides it's connected. 

 

i'm so sick of it. if this was an 8 or 10 year old computer sure, i'd expect issues. but this is a modern machine still!!! i'm just so done with this whole thing. i need a reliable computer, i have things to do. a machine that randomly decides it doesn't want to work anymore is unacceptable for me. 

 

i'm jsut so sick of it. why msut it be like this? i'm not even talking these issues specifically now, also Windows just deciding to break my gpu driver and i have to spend an hour to get it back to normal is just... why? why do we as customers accept this? 

 

i'm just at the point where i don't trust pc's anymore. at all. even if i build them myself and i know i didn't make a mistake, i just cannot rely on them. 

 

my only option right now is to unplug my pc entirely and plug my macbook pro into my setup. i don't want to do that, as my macbook pro is 8 years old and certainly not the fastest computer in the world anymore. however, say what you want about macbooks, but i got this one used 2 years ago. it's been in my backpack every day for 1.5 years to school, where it ran heavy compute tasks like VM's which would let it sit at 100% utilization for hours at a time. it's been my main computer for a while before when the pc i had at the time broke, so it was at school all day running heavy tasks and then plugged into my main setup at home and used heavily again. it's been through hell, dropped various times, sat in a damp backpack after a heavy rainstorm more than once, used on trains with loads of vibration while running at 90+ degrees if i had to finish schoolwork on my way home.... and it's still working flawlessly. it's only stopped working once which was my mistake, i broke the drive cable when swapping drives into it. apart form that which was a €10 and 15 minute fix, it's never let me down once. 

 

how do pc customers still accept that machines that are 3 or 4 years old get unstable, need OS reinstalls, whatever else, when the competition exists? how? 

 

sorry for my rant, i'm jsut annoyed that i put a bunch of money into a computer that's just a doorstop at this point. i cannot rely on it therefore it's useless. i'm currently living in a temporary situation and i don't have easy access to spare parts, because at my parents house i've started with packing up all my things. 

 

i'm just so lucky to own some apple products, which are the only thing that are ever reliable for me for some weird reason. i don't know if it's a curse or what, but i'm just done.

 

i will keep my pc and i will try to diagnose it but i'm just sick and tired of needing to practically babysit and cuddle my computer all the time, putting hours every month into fixing problems and bugs, when i have a macbook pro that has never let me down before and i can know for a fact when i press the power button that it will start up. i no longer have that confidence in my pc. 

 

so, the current pc i have will likely be my last. until it dies completely i will continue to play games on it, but i'm gonna just start saving up and buy a console when it inevitebly dies.

It's windows being windows. If you want stability Windows is not the OS you want. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

3 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

It's windows being windows. If you want stability Windows is not the OS you want. 

did you read through my post? these issues are also present in linux. 

[WkdPaul]

You mentioned multiple times now that you have the same issues in Linux, as others have stated, that points to a hardware problem.

 

I get that you're ranting here, but getting used hardware and expecting 100% reliability is more than hopeful. Even getting new parts, you have to keep your expectations realistic, even with pre-builds and Macs, there are no computer hardware out there that has 0% failure rates. The best you can hope for is low failure rates and good customer service in case shit hits the fan.

 

Seems to me it's more about your expectations than anything else. BTW, it sucks when you PC starts being unreliable, I get it, I've been there ... but as someone that has used and built tons of used PCs, you can't expect building a PC with used parts and have it run flawlessly for a decade. I mean ,even with brand new parts, just have a look at the Troubleshooting section, and you'll regularly find people having issue with a brand new build, DOA, or parts that die a few months later is a thing. It sucks, but it's a thing.